Chương 133: 04. Dragon Princess 2

I had now achieved perfect clarity on one point: attempting to reason with a dragon was, in itself, profoundly unreasonable. But after that initial terror—the kind that threatens to permanently relocate your internal organs—began to subside, I slowly managed to pry my eyes open. And for a moment, I couldn't speak at all. From this height, the earth looked like old leather cracked open by fire. What had seemed catastrophic enough at ground level became something else entirely from above.

The towns and roads had compressed into a chessboard grid—charred districts like claw marks torn across the surface, the fleeing crowds reduced to tiny black specks moving along the fractures. Buildings still burning punched scarlet holes into the night. Further out: post roads, watchtowers, refugee columns, collapsed outposts, and chains of fire spreading along the ridgelines—all of it laid out with terrible, comprehensive clarity. Borders. Walls. Passes. Fortifications.

The things that looked so absolute on maps and official documents appeared, from this height, as fragile as lines carelessly scratched in dirt. So this is what humans look like from a dragon's perspective. The things we bleed ourselves dry defending—they're this small. And in that moment, I understood something. I understood why Ignicia couldn't be bothered to sit in a room trading diplomatic pleasantries. Because the world she saw had never been drawn to that scale.

"Do you see it, Cedric?" A voice resonated directly inside my skull. I nearly launched myself off her back.

"—What was that?!" The massive dragon head below tilted slightly, clearly quite satisfied with my reaction.

"Ah, my apologies." Her voice carried what was, astonishingly, a genuine trace of oh, I forgot.

"I forgot you humans can't thought-speak. Never mind—you can hear me now, that's sufficient." Is "never mind" really adequate coverage for telepathic assault? I drew a deep breath and decided to add this to my running account of grievances—assuming I survived long enough to file them. Ignicia paid no attention to my rapidly materializing resentment, simply angled her wings and glided east.

"Look there." I followed her indication. At the far horizon, between night sky and smoke layer, something else was visible—a dark line distinct from the burn patterns below. Not a single town or road, but something deliberately extended outward—silent, continuous, carrying an unsettling quality of geometric intention.

"The Yanxia Empire lies there." Ignicia's voice thrummed low through my mind.

"Once just a minor nation at the periphery. Ten years ago they changed kings—since then they've been growing too fast. Like something that should have been cut down and wasn't." For the first time, her tone carried something besides fury and arrogance. Not fear. Disgust.

"They want Eckhaus land. They want Dragon Kingdom territory." Her mental voice went flat and cold.

"That particular stench—I can smell it across the mountains." I clung to her back, desperately trying to reassemble my wind-scattered thoughts into something functional.

"So Black Dragon Pass—""Quiet. Look first." Four words, and my attempt at conversation had been cleanly terminated. Wonderful. This Princess's conversational habits were, I was learning, exactly like her takeoff method: specifically engineered to shave years off one's life expectancy. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. She began descending. The wind pressure eased, but the rate at which the ground rose to meet us was somehow more alarming.

I watched a jagged ridge materialize from the darkness—sharp rock faces like exposed ribs of some overturned beast, black streaks along the slopes where lava had once licked the stone. She landed on a sheltered plateau, wings folding, sending a blast of hot air and loose rock outward. The moment my boots hit earth, my legs expressed their professional opinion. Honestly, my highest priority right now wasn't negotiation, wasn't investigating Black Dragon Pass, and absolutely wasn't analyzing geopolitical strategy.

I wanted to throw up. Ignicia, meanwhile, shifted back to human form as casually as someone removing a coat, shook out her hair, and showed no sign of having expended any effort whatsoever. Then she clapped me on the shoulder with robust enthusiasm.

"Not bad, Cedric." The impact nearly convinced my stomach to surrender its contents immediately.

"... What part qualifies as 'not bad'?"

"You didn't pass out." She examined me, and for the first time, that condescending assessment contained a fraction of something resembling approval.

"For a short-lifer, you're sturdier than expected." Whether this constituted praise or insult remained genuinely unclear.

"Much appreciated, Your Highness." I braced against a boulder, projecting living human rather than recently flung salted fish.

"If you're inclined to compliment me in future, perhaps we could explore methods that don't require empirical survival testing?" She actually laughed at that. Not the predatory grin from before—something shorter, more genuine. A flash of actual amusement, gone almost immediately, but real. Then she walked to the cliff face, hooked one hand around a boulder roughly the size of half a door, and moved it aside like a pebble. Behind it lay a fissure angling inward, dark, with faint warm light visible within.

"One of my hoards." She glanced at me, still carrying that trace of satisfaction.

"Come in. We'll talk." I looked at the boulder she'd just relocated like inconvenient gravel. I looked at the crack. I looked at my still-trembling hands. Perfect. I had just been carried into the sky by a dragon. Now I was being invited into her lair. If I walked out of this intact, I was going to have to seriously reconsider my relationship with fate. The cave interior looked exactly like every tavern bard's cliché had suddenly decided to be accurate. Dragon's mountain peak. Hoard beyond counting.

I'd always assumed those lyrics existed to extract coins from children and drunks. Seeing it in person, I realized the bards' primary failing wasn't exaggeration—it was profound understatement. Gold and silver covered every surface. Not organized into chests, not arranged with royal treasury dignity. Just... scattered with the comprehensive indifference of someone who had never bothered to care. Coins spread across stone floors, chiming softly underfoot.

Broken gem necklaces tangled in gold drifts—diamonds, emeralds, rubies throwing aggressive light in the warm glow. In one corner, several rare magical materials I could price at a glance had been piled like furniture shims. I stood still for two seconds. My first coherent thought: Thank every deity I didn't bring Jessi. She would have stared at this treasury for thirty seconds, then turned to demand exactly how I had managed to resist profitable dragon abduction until now.

Ignicia had no interest in contemplating interspecies financial philosophy. She grabbed two burlap sacks and tossed them at my chest.

"Human. Help yourself." Her tone suggested this was self-evidently reasonable.

"Take whatever you need." I looked at the sacks. Then at her.

"... Your Highness, this is—?"

"Compensation." She said it like mentioning the soup needed less salt.

"This Princess will apologize personally later." At that moment, I failed to detect the full dimensions of trouble concealed in that sentence. I even thought, quite foolishly: compensation and an apology—this dragon might actually be reasonable. In retrospect, that was probably the second most naive thing I did that evening. The first was assuming "hold on" wouldn't be immediately followed by leaving the ground. I looked around and noticed something that elevated the absurdity to new heights. A broom.

A perfectly ordinary broom, leaning against the cave wall. Standing in the middle of scattered fortune, staring at that broom, I experienced a moment of surreal dissociation. Of all the ways your life could have gone, Cedric Rosa. I set the sacks down, picked up the broom, and began sweeping coins toward the openings.

"Speaking of which, Your Highness."

"Mm?"

"Why did you burn your own territory?" Ignicia looked at me. No surprise in that gaze—only the clear implication of I knew you'd ask eventually. She crossed her arms. Brief silence.

"Must it be explained?"

"Everything requires reasons." I kept sweeping, tone as far from interrogation as possible.

"If there's something genuinely difficult to disclose, keep it simple. Annoyance, bad mood, didn't get your morning drink, sneezed at an inconvenient moment—all qualify." She stared for two seconds, then made a sharp sound.

"Ridiculous."

"But someone would believe it."

"Ha." She actually laughed—characteristic arrogance present, but genuine amusement underneath.

"You really do know how to talk."

"You're too kind." I gauged the half-full sack and naturally reached for another.

"Your Highness—if it's not presumptuous, may I fill one more?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Greedy human."

"This one isn't for me." Completely serious.

"It's compensation for the southern border marquis." Ignicia's eyebrow lifted. I spread the second sack and continued sweeping, voice carrying the calm efficiency of routine work allocation.

"Margrave Frank is currently stationed at the border emitting visible smoke from fury. If I hadn't arrived first to hold him down, the Empire and Dragon Kingdom would likely already be exchanging fire. This bag won't buy his goodwill, but it will reduce the immediate probability of someone shooting you out of the sky." She made a sound through her nose.

"Consider it this Princess doing you a favor."

"Your generosity is much appreciated."

"Stop performing." I suppressed a smile and kept sweeping. Honestly, the scene was absurd enough to make me laugh at myself. An Imperial envoy, crouching in a dragon's secret hoard, sweeping gold coins with a broom, sorting compensation for an incident that nearly triggered bilateral war. If anyone ever records this, I sincerely hope they have the decency not to make me sound like I came here specifically for janitorial work.